'Big Bang' Experiment: Up, Up, and Away!

A research balloon heads into the sky after a Jan. 1 launch in Antarctica, carrying six telescopes designed to collect information about gravitational waves from about 110,000 feet above the Earth. The experiment, prepared by a team of scientists led by William Jones ’98, an assistant professor of physics, could provide new insights about the early stages of the Big Bang. The launch initially was scheduled for December 2013, but the federal-government shutdown in October 2013 forced a one-year delay. Other alumni on the 21-person research team are associate research scholars Zigmund Kermish ’03 and Aurelien Fraisse *10, postdoctoral research associate Jon Gudmundsson *14, and professors John Ruhl *93 of Case Western Reserve University and C. Barth Netterfield *95 of the University of Toronto. A balloon flight of about three weeks was expected.